Thursday, 25 May 2017

I have been mulling this blog
over for a few weeks now, and its subject matter finally struck me on the way
to work on Monday morning. The
subsequent events in Manchester on Monday evening have brought it into even sharper
relief, and therefore it seems only fitting and natural that I give it a try.

Just a moment on Manchester:
naturally, my heartfelt condolences to all those affected, especially
parents. Know this – on Tuesday morning,
the parents of Badock’s Wood stood squarely with you. Let me put it this way – it isn’t every day a
Polish father hugs you in the middle of the main road, and although he is an
indecently handsome man, thank goodness for that. The people of your city have shown the world
what it is to react in love and compassion, not in hatred and revenge, and for
that, you have my undying respect.

On my way to work on Monday, I
was, as is often the case, thinking about the day ahead. I got to thinking
about my impending assembly, the final one on the topic of perseverance and
commitment, and I was struck by the irony of delivering such a topic to a
community and a group of people who are already showing almost inexhaustible pools of the stuff

Furthermore, you all know the
story by now: we’re having a bit of a year of it, having gone into an OfSTED
category and then being hurled into the uncertainty of the forced academies programme. As a result, you might well expect that it is
exactly at times such as this when communities or groups quietly and painfully
implode, and struggle to call upon pools of the resources mentioned above. But do you know what? Not a bit of it.

So, when thinking about “the
old p&c” (as no-one calls them, ever) I was struck by how amazing the
school has been in these respects lately.
Wouldn’t it be clever if the remainder of this blog were given over to
some good examples thereof…?

The staff, despite the
challenges thrown their way by recent events, have responded magnificently. Yes, there have been a few hiccups, a few
frank / terse discussions, and a little too much rumour, but over all the staff
have been simply superb. How do we
know? It’s in some of the larger things –
i.e. they all keep turning up, no I mean it, really – that then transform into
the smaller, almost unseen things, such as the cool collection with which we
have just blasé-d our way through a national test window, the way our
curriculum is for ever growing, and the way our children are immaculately cared
for. When it comes to perseverance and
commitment, and rugged determination, grit and “give it some”, then our staff
have demonstrated it in spades, and then some.

The community have continued
their unswerving support of the school during this period, and continue to go
from strength to strength. Our friends
association, the Buddies, have not only grown in number, but have also
diversified their spectrum of activity, and there is now a friendly scrimmage
for ice lollies at the end of each Friday as our buddies sell them with the
broadest of smiles. Already massive
events are planned for the summer, such as our Fayre (and a massive party –
watch this space). Once again however,
it is the unseen, the invisible, but the oh-so important. The kind words offered to staff in need. The support on trips and events. Believe it or not, uniform and attendance are
getting better and better.

Above all,
the buzz around the place is just wonderful.

The pay off in all of this is
that the quality of the experience improves for children. But, hey, they’re doing it for themselves
anyway. The sheer determination and
passion shown by our children in recent weeks has been humbling, never so more
than in SATs week, when we had some of our best attendance for the year to
date. Not only year 6, but also the way
year 2 have applied themselves has been astounding. In all year groups, children are producing
work of which they are rightly proud.
But it neither starts nor ends at the classroom door.

It goes so much further, wider
and deeper. Our choir not only blew the
school away in assembly a few weeks ago, but also took their place amongst all
the other schools at the first major rehearsal this week, having learned a
staggering array of complicated and complex songs with ease. Whilst they have been learning those, the rest
of us are mastering Sgt Pepper, in its entirety (no easy feat, as I’m sure you
can imagine). However, we now have year
6 harmonising to She’s Leaving Home with year 1, and almost every child word
perfect on Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

We have continued enjoying a
wide range of trips, and reaping the benefits.
However, I’m not telling you that to be smug or owt, I’m telling you
because, after one year 5 trip (but also after much of the school had been), we received an email from the hosts saying how
stunning our children are, how wonderfully they behaved and how epic are staff
are. Thanks. We know.
But we do appreciate being told. Doesn’t
sound like a school languishing in the doldrums does it?

On the subject of emails to
school, I arrived a few Fridays ago to a beautiful email from a former reading
volunteer who had heard one of our children speak at a school funding rally the
evening before, and was in awe, as we
often our of our friend in year 5, who made the speech everyone is talking
about. As ever, when people seem to be
keen on hearing what’s going wrong, stuff is sort of going right, actually,
thanks very much.

Far from needing assemblies
about perseverance and commitment, people seem to be full of the stuff, and
getting on with things quite merrily. I’ve
said it before and, you’ve guessed it, I’m about to say it again: aren’t we lucky? Aren’t we lucky to work among so much good
will, so much determination, so much energy, so much passion, so much ….. just
so much?

About Me

I am from Birmingham and married to Sue. We have two drains on our disposable income, called Ruben and Thea, who regret to inform us that they intend to resent our existence for the next 15 years or so, give or take. We live in Yatton, where we have lots of friends, and where we have a million barbeques a year. I play badminton, but try not to run or win, and support the greatest team in the universe - Aston Villa FC, as well as loving a bit of rugby, cricket, golf, tennis, ...